Farmers' markets as a sustainable model of producers-consumers relationships: Evidence from Tuscany

Mengoni, Matteo; Marescotti, Andrea; Belletti, Giovanni Article Farmers' markets as a sustainable model of producersconsumers relationships: Evidence from Tuscany Italian Review of Agricultural Economics (REA) Provided in Cooperation with: Firenze University Press Suggested Citation: Mengoni, Matteo; Marescotti, Andrea; Belletti, Giovanni (2024) : Farmers' markets as a sustainable model of producers-consumers relationships: Evidence from Tuscany, Italian Review of Agricultural Economics (REA), ISSN 2281-1559, Firenze University Press, Florence, Vol. 79, Iss. 1, pp. 47-62, https://doi.org/10.36253/rea-14895 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/325676 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. 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If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Italian Review of Agricultural Economics Vol. 79, n. 1: 47-62, 2024 Firenze University Press www.fupress.com/rea ISSN 0035-6190 (print) | ISSN 2281-1559 (online) | DOI: 10.36253/rea-14895 REA ITALIAN REVIEW OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS ITALIAN REVIEW OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS Citation: Mengoni, M., Marescotti, A., & Belletti, G. (2024). Farmers’ markets as a sustainable model of producers-consumers relationships: evidence from Tuscany. Italian Review of Agricultural Economics 79(1): 47-62. DOI: 10.36253/ rea-14895 Received: November 11, 2023 Revised: February 04, 2024 Accepted: April 03, 2024 Copyright: © 2024 Mengoni, M., Marescotti, A., & Belletti, G. This is an open access, peer-reviewed article published by Firenze University Press (https://www.fupress.com/rea) and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files. Competing Interests: The Author(s) declare(s) no conflict of interest. Guest Editor: Bernard Pecqueur, Marcello De Rosa, Catia Zumpano ORCID MM: 0000-0003-4505-9658 AM: 0000-0001-9891-2857 GB: 0000-0002-0347-4274 Agrifood system between global and territorial vision – Research article Farmers’ markets as a sustainable model of producers-consumers relationships: evidence from Tuscany Matteo Mengoni, Andrea Marescotti*, Giovanni Belletti Department of Economics and Management, University of Florence, Italy *Corresponding author. E-mail: andrea.maresco[email protected]t Abstract. Evidence from the literature emphasize the role of Farmers’ Markets (FMs) in enhancing economic benefits for both producers and consumers, improving social outcomes and benefiting the environment. Therefore, FMs can be conceived not just as an alternative to the market, but also as a specific way of shaping producers-consumers relationships, which influences and is at the same time the result of their respective selling-buying models. This article aims at investigating the hypothesis of FMs as a specific and structural form of producers-consumers relationships, and collecting evidence on their perceptions, motivations and behaviour at the markets, and on the impact of selling and purchasing at these FMs on sustainability dimensions. For this purpose, we selected a sample of FMs in the north of Tuscany (Italy) and submitted two in-person semi-structured questionnaires, to both producers and consumers. The methodology was based on actors’ self-assessment supported by guiding interviewers. Results showed how producers and consumers participating in FMs, although with differences across FMs types, do not only activate market relationships, but share, learn and build values together. Indeed, FMs are perceived by the actors involved as a structural and alternative framework, giving space and shaping alternative producers-consumers connections. Keywords: farmers’ markets, short food supply chains, alternative food networks, sustainability, proximity economy. JEL codes: Q12, Q13. HIGHLIGHTS – FMs are widespread in Tuscany, differing in terms of promoters, degree of actors’ involvement, governance and functioning. – In each FM, producers and consumers create their own organisational space, reflecting the characteristics of the products they exchange, their idea of agrifood systems, and the relational model that better suits their values. – FMs constitute an innovative and alternative economic and social space, structuring producers-consumers relations and shaping their selling and buying models. 48 Matteo Mengoni, Andrea Marescotti, Giovanni Belletti 1. INTRODUCTION Over the last few decades, the agri-food system has undergone rapid and deep changes, characterized by a strong trend toward globalization, privatization and vertical coordination (Swinnen and Maertens, 2007; Hendrickson and Heffernan, 2002). These shifts have resulted from various demographics, political, social, technical, economic and cultural factors, culminating in the emergence of an industrialized model of food production and distribution. In this model, large-scale food processing companies and supermarket chains have come to dominate a progressively globalized food system. Simultaneously, shifts in consumers’ behaviours and needs have been driven by societal and economic transformation. The decline of the economic importance of agriculture in rural areas, coupled with urbanization, has led to the geographical separation of agricultural production from consumption centres. This geographical gap needs a complex network of physical (transport, storage, packaging, processing), digital (e-commerce platforms, websites, online stores) and informational connections facilitated by diverse stakeholders. Moreover, income growth, changes in work organisation and shifts in family structure have heightened the demand for additional services in the food purchasing process, reducing consumers direct engagement with farming activities. These changes in the agri-food system have presented an opportunity to make a wide range of food products available globally, thereby enhancing food security and safety, and improving nutritional, technological and sensory attributes of food. At the same time, the rise of global food chains has raised concerns, notably regarding vulnerability. The industrialized food provisioning model has sparked growing criticisms across multiple dimensions. Economically, smallholders and SMEs face growing challenges in market accessing due to the complexity of adhering to quality standards and the dominance of larger industrial and distribution players, coupled with price compression at the farm gate and increased market price volatility. The growing geographical, cultural, information divide between production and consumption, along with the negative effects of food system industrialization on equity and fairness, environmental degradation and the loss of social relations, have spurred renewed emphasis on short food supply chains (SFSCs). The increasing interest in SFSCs worldwide, driven by farmers, consumers and citizens, and in some cases, public authorities, underscores the need for alternative food systems that can fulfil some functions overlooked by the industrialized model. SFSCs aim to bridge the gap between food production and consumption, while supporting small producers in achieving viable livelihoods and vibrant rural communities. Indeed, SFSCs are often characterized as “alternative” (Goodman, DuPuis and Goodman, 2011) or “civic” (Lamine, 2005) supply-chains, or even “nested markets” (Van der Ploeg, Jingzhong and Schneider, 2012). They represent a shift away from industrialized agriculture and food production mainly in developed countries, prioritizing social and environmental sustainability over purely economic considerations. In essence, SFSCs can be conceptualized as an alternative component within the global food system, with a focus on transforming the principle of production and market exchange. Their development spurred a wide theoretical debate over the innovative character of such initiatives – their “alternativeness” – as well as with their “transformative” role. This transformation places emphasis on fairness, solidarity and sustainability. The recent Covid-19 pandemic has further reinforced the interest in SFSCs. Travel restrictions encouraged the search for alternative food supply methods to reduce physical contacts, while disruption in international trade prompted a re-evaluation of locally produced foods. In this context, SFSCs and local productions have emerged as avenues for innovations, combining social and technological advancements (Belletti and Marescotti, 2020; Nemes et al., 2021; Hobbes, 2021), as well as experimenting new forms of governance and relational connections. This article aims at investigating Farmers’ Markets (FMs) as a special form of producers-consumers relationship which goes beyond the pure economic sphere of market exchange, shaping a new arena where social relationships between producers and consumers can develop, and where actors’ participations show different motivations other than economic profitability, to embrace a whole set of economic, social and environmental values (Manser, 2022), such as territorial proximity, community belonging, environmental care, social relationships, learning. In other words, as Smithers et al. (2008: 338; cit. in Manser, 2022) put it, FMs are important “as not only a site of exchange, but also as a venue for negotiated meaning in the local food landscape”. Analysing a sample of Tuscan FMs belonging to three Italian FMs’ networks, this article tries to compare more “institutional” FMs (Coldiretti and Cia) to more “alternative” ones (Genuino Clandestino), to see how through their different governance structures and functioning mechanisms they respond to different objectives, ideas and values that are the expression of the actors involved (producers and consumers). The ultimate goal of this article is 49 Farmers’ markets as a sustainable model of producers-consumers relationships: evidence from Tuscany to feed the debate on FMs as alternative and innovative tools, tailored to producers and consumer needs, motivation and expectation, and contributing to the transition towards more sustainable and resilient territorial food systems. 2. THE SUSTAINABILITY OF FARMERS’ MARKETS FMs have been increasingly spreading in Italy since the late 1990s, as a way for farmers and small-medium enterprises to increase their position on the market and their share of value added, bypassing intermediaries, and for consumers to get high quality, fresh and healthy food from local sources. FMs exist under various forms and can be activated and led by a variety of different stakeholders (producers, consumers, municipalities, professionals’ organisations). Therefore, FMs can be conceived not just an alternative route to market for producers and consumers to satisfy their respective needs, but they can constitute a specific form of producers-consumers relationship, which influences and is at the same time the result of their respective selling-buying models. In other terms, FMs can represent a model of “proximity economy” (Marotta and Nazzaro, 2023), where producers sell their products to local citizens, and consumers are interested in buying products and services from their own territory, while exchanging and strengthening ties and values that can no longer be found in conventional marketing channels. The sustainability of FMs is a strongly debated issue in the academic arena (Forssell and Lankoski, 2014; Michel-Villarreal et al., 2019; Chiffoleau and Dourian, 2020), especially in comparison with long conventional food chains (Brunori et al., 2016; Galli et al., 2015), and has gained increasing political attention in view of the beneficial outcomes they are likely to provide for the economy, environment and society as a whole (Vittersø et al., 2019). 2.1. The economic dimension Many studies suggest that FMs can contribute to rural development and economic regeneration. FMs can be new sources of value added to retain locally, stimulating rural economic regeneration and dynamism (Marotta and Nazzaro, 2023). They can create “new economic spaces” enhancing the local attributes such as terroir, traditional knowledge and landrace species, which can translate into higher prices (DuPuis and Goodman, 2005; Van der Ploeg et al., 2000; Marsden et al., 2002). Shortening the number of links in the supply chain results in a “multiplier effect”, that is increased local sales, increased demand for local services and increased labour markets (Otto and Varner, 2005; Henneberry et al., 2009). Some studies have also suggested that the presence of FMs attracts shoppers into areas they would otherwise not visit and creates new opportunities for tourism, the revenue from which tends to remain in the local economy, triggering its multiplier effects in the local community (Lev et al., 2003). At individual level, the most reported economic benefit associated with FMs is the increase in producers’ incomes. Selling through FMs enables producers, thanks to the elimination of intermediaries (distributors, wholesalers, etc.), to further process and add value themselves to their produce, which in turn allows them to add a price premium on these products and thereby capture a greater share of the profits (Pearson et al., 2011; Sage, 2003). The higher quality and increased freshness of products usually observed in FMs, also increases the economic value for consumers, who can buy food that lasts longer and thus reduce food waste (Marino and Cicatiello, 2012). 2.2. The social dimension Among the positive effects of SFSCs on the three pillars of sustainability, the social ones are usually the most cited in the literature (Demartini et al., 2017). Kneafsey et al. (2013) identified three main social areas of impact, namely (1) social interaction, trust and social embeddedness, (2) sense of community, (3) knowledge and behavioural change. Building relationships of trust is crucial in every experience of FMs. The social dimension is one of the most highlighted aspects by consumers who attend FMs, who often greatly value the atmosphere of their shopping experience. Consumers tend to become loyal customers and to develop confidential relationships with sellers and producers, so that over time, the feeling of trust is no longer referred to the food product itself but to the fact that one can trust the farmer to produce this food in a “safe” way, because the consumer knows the farmer and holds him/her responsible (Hendrickson and Heffernan, 2002; cit. in Kneafsey et al., 2013). Another important dimension influenced by SFSCs is what Kneafsey et al. (2013) call “sense of community”. FMs have the potential to empower and revitalise local communities, increase work opportunities for young farmers and for people who would be excluded from traditional agriculture (women, pensioners, disabled) and therefore create new employment. They can succeed in keeping rural communities in rural areas and avoid 50 Matteo Mengoni, Andrea Marescotti, Giovanni Belletti their desertification and isolation, by creating new forms of relationships between the city and the countryside. Moreover, SFSCs tend to favour cooperation at all levels and small producers can benefit from working with others (producers, consumers and institutions), since this enables them to reach markets they would otherwise not reach through, for example, shared logistics and delivery operations, shared labelling schemes, shared publicity and promotional campaigns. This can also favour co-operation towards innovation, through the establishment of networks of knowledge exchange, skills training and technical relations among farmers (Mastronardi et al., 2015; Vittersø et al., 2019; Kneafsey et al., 2013; Mancini et al., 2019). Looking at the more emotional acceptation of the sense of community, SFSCs can contribute to strengthen cultural and regional identities, enhance social cohesion and community building by instilling a sense of pride and belonging to a particular area or social group (Vittersø et al., 2019). The third social dimension concerns knowledge leading to behavioural change. Consumers attending SFSCs, through social relationships with producers, sellers and other consumers, may learn information on how the food is produced, the methods used and specific organoleptic and territorial attributes, improving their food awareness, culinary education and sustainable food choices. This makes it easier for consumers to evaluate the fairness of prices and understand the true cost and externalities of food production (Malak-Rawlikowska et al., 2019; Vittersø et al., 2019; Mastronardi et al., 2015). 2.3. The environmental dimension The environmental impact is the more uncertain of the three sustainability pillars. In the literature, the more commonly reported effects that FMs are likely to have on the environment are reduction in food miles and carbon footprint, positive impacts on biodiversity and reduction in the use of agrochemicals on organic farms. Notwithstanding this, quantitative evidence on these effects is quite rare, due to the difficulty in measuring environmental effects and externalities of the different types of SFSCs. FMs are likely to have a positive impact on agrobiodiversity since, with the necessity to meet consumers’ demand for variety, usually met by supermarkets, they feel the need to diversify production instead of specialising in one or two crops, often rediscovering ancient and traditional varieties or introducing organic farming (Bullock, 2000). In FMs, farmers may also have the tendency to adopt more sustainable practices to reduce negative externalities of agriculture on the environment, such as avoiding the use of pesticides and agrochemicals (typical in organic production), contrasting water pollution and land degradation, protecting natural habitats, reducing packaging of products, contributing to food waste reduction through fresh and high-quality products, paying attention to animal welfare (Marino and Cicatiello, 2012). FMs, being based on the close relationship between producers and consumers at a local level, may contribute to reduce “food miles”, namely the distance food travels to reach consumers, and therefore lower the negative externalities linked to food transportation such as CO2 emissions and air pollution (DEFRA 2005; cit. in Mastronardi et al., 2015, and in Marino et al., 2013). Nevertheless, on this last point, there is a lack of agreement in the literature since consumers driving to and from the local retail place (market, farm or pick-up point) to buy small quantities of food can be more “carbon intensive” per kilo of product compared to ordinary shopping (Vittersø et al., 2019; Mancini et al., 2019). 3. DATA AND METHODS Farmers’ markets in Tuscany have a long historical tradition, dating back to the early 1970s and originating from farmers’ search for alternative ways to the dominant development model of the industrial agrifood system. In recent years, FMs have begun to attract the growing interest of consumers, but also of public actors, in particular regional and local administrations, who started to perceive their value in local development processes and to take direct action for their promotion (Brunori et al., 2009). Nowadays, FMs are still very widespread in the region, varying in terms of types of promoters (professional producers’ organisations, consumers’ associations, public institutions, small farmers’ networks), degree of actors’ involvement, governance and functioning. This article aims to investigate Farmers’ Markets (FMs) as a new arena for social relationships between producers and consumers, where actors show different motivations other than economic profitability that embrace a whole set of economic, social and environmental values. For the purpose of this study, we selected a sample of 9 farmers markets on the Florence-Prato-Pistoia plain (in the north of Tuscany, Italy, see Figure 1) belonging to three different networks: Coldiretti, Cia and Genuino Clandestino. Coldiretti (Confederazione Nazionale Coltivatori Diretti) and Cia (Confederazione Italiana Agricoltori) are the two main Italian farmers’ unions, both 51 Farmers’ markets as a sustainable model of producers-consumers relationships: evidence from Tuscany organising and managing a network of farmers’ markets, respectively Campagna Amica FMs and La Spesa in Campagna FMs. Genuino Clandestino, instead, is a local association gathering small farmers campaigning for food sovereignty. While the two farmers’ unions are very institutionalised organisations, the last one is a bottomup network of farmers, with a quite strong political connotation and a militant approach to themes such as food self-determination and food sovereignty. In our sample we selected 2 Cia FMs, 5 Coldiretti FMs and 2 Genuino Clandestino FMs (Table 1). All these FMs are recent markets, created in the last 10-15 years by independent farmers’ groups (Genuino Clandestino) or according to nation-wide initiatives of the two farmers’ unions (Coldiretti and Cia). In these FMs, depending on the regulations of each single market, producers mostly sell their own products, or those produced by other members of these networks. Most of the producers participating in these FMs are local or regional producers, with a few exceptions for those selling very specific or traditional products from other Italian regions. For each selected market, we conducted some inperson interviews, submitting two different questionnaires to a sample of 34 producers and 181 consumers, with the aim of collecting evidence on their perceptions, motivations and behaviour in the markets, and on the impact of selling/purchasing in these farmers markets on sustainability dimensions. The two samples were almost equally distributed among the 9 markets, with 3-4 producers and 20 consumers interviewed for each one. Interviews were conducted in April and May 2023. The producers’ sample contains mostly small family businesses located in Tuscany, around the provinces of Florence, Prato, Pistoia and Lucca, with some exceptions of non-Tuscan producers selling particular kind of products such as Parmigiano Reggiano from Emilia-Romagna (central Italy) and citrus fruit from Basilicata (southern Italy). For the majority, producers sell fruit and vegetables, cheese and milk derivatives, meat and cold cuts, and olive oil, which is a very typical and widespread product in Tuscany, largely used in the culinary tradition. Consumers in the sample are 61% females (111 individuals) and 39% males (70 individuals), with an average age of 56 years old (min. 19, max. 90) and an average family size of 2.73 components. The methodology employed is based on actors’ selfassessment supported by a guiding interviewer. The questionnaire submitted to producers is divided into two main sections. The first section contains open-ended questions collecting descriptive information on the characteristics of respondents’ businesses and their participation in the specific FM (e.g., organisational arrangeFigure 1. Location of the case study area: Florence-Prato-Pistoia plain, Tuscany, central Italy. 52 Matteo Mengoni, Andrea Marescotti, Giovanni Belletti ments, resources needed, motivations and expectations, difficulties and future needs). The second section contains two sets of structured questions, the first set asking producers to evaluate (on a 5-point Likert scale, from “not important” to “very important”) the importance of a list of seven criteria (income increase, income security and stability, fairness and social justice, supporting the local community, consumers’ satisfaction, reduction of negative environmental externalities, preservation of local resources) in the decision-making process of their business, and the second set asking them to assess (on a 5-point Likert scale, from “very negative” to “very positive”) the impact of the specific FM on a list of 33 economic (EC), social (S) and environmental (EN) aspects (Table 2). The questionnaire submitted to consumers contains closed-ended questions dealing, in the first part, with the general characteristics of consumers’ participation in the specific market (e.g., frequency of attendance, types of products purchased, average expenditure). The second part of the questionnaire contains some questions asking consumers to express (on a 3-points Likert scale) their agreement with the perceived impact of the FM on a list of consumption attributes grouped into 3 categories (consumption experience and prices (CE), quality and health (QH), localness and the environment (LE)) and with the factors perceived as limiting (LM) the access and frequency of purchases at FMs (Table 3). 4. RESULTS Results show that both the producers and consumers interviewed use farmers’ markets in a stable and continuous way, as their main commercial outlet. 76% of the producers in the sample also participate in other FMs than the one in which they were interviewed, and 79% of them consider FMs as “very important” in relation to their economic turnover (Figure 2). Moreover, the majority of producers offer a quite wide supply products at the FM (Figure 3), with 56% of producers selling 3 or more categories of products, 26% of them 4 or more categories, and 15% 5 or more categories. Looking at consumers (Figure 4), 71% of the sample frequently buy products at the FM where they were interviewed (50% of them weekly and 21% a few times a month), while 42% also frequently buy products from other FMs. Moreover, the majority of consumers buy a quite varied basket of products at the FM (Figure 3), with 80% of consumers buying 3 or more categories of products, 56% of them 4 or more categories, and 35% 5 or more, suggesting a use of FMs for the usual food shopping. Producers in the sample on average evaluated social and environmental criteria (“support local community”, “consumers’ satisfaction”, “reduction of negative environmental externalities” and “preservation of local resources”) as significantly more important in their productive and marketing decisions than economic criteria (“income increase” and “income security and stability”). However, some differences emerged across different FMs networks (Figure 5). Most of the producers from Genuino Clandestino (91%) consider social and environmental decision-making criteria very important and only 28% of them attribute importance to economic ones. Instead, in Cia and especially Coldiretti markets, even if most of the producers attribute a significant importance to social and environmental criteria, they still also consider economic criteria very important (50% of producers in Cia and 90% in Coldiretti). Concerning sustainability, producers on average evaluated the impacts of FMs as positive on all the items analysed in the three sustainability dimensions but, however, environmental and social aspects are perceived as Table 1. Structure of the sample in relation to the market characteristics. Market City Network N° producers N° consumers Piazza Alberti Florence (FI) CIA 4 20 Parterre Florence (FI) CIA 3 20 Novoli Florence (FI) COLDIRETTI 3 20 Cascine Florence (FI) COLDIRETTI 4 20 Osmannoro Sesto Fiorentino (FI) COLDIRETTI 4 20 Sacra Famiglia Prato (PO) COLDIRETTI 4 21 Via dell’Annona Pistoia (PT) COLDIRETTI 5 20 Piazza Tasso Florence (FI) Genuino Clandestino 4 20 Le Fornaci Pistoia (PT) Genuino Clandestino 3 20 Total 34 181 53 Farmers’ markets as a sustainable model of producers-consumers relationships: evidence from Tuscany more positively influenced by FMs than economic ones. Looking across the three different networks of FMs, some interesting differences emerge (Figure 6). Genuino Clandestino producers are the most critical producers, especially towards the impact on purely economic aspects (EC1-EC5, EC8, EC11), while they perceive a positive impact of the FM on economic resilience (EC14), thanks to the possibility of coping with different market risks though diversification (EC6), sale of products unfit (EC7) for modern markets (small defects, imperfect shape/size) risk and resources sharing mechanisms (EC9, EC10). Producers of this network also perceived the social impacts of the FM as very positive, especially on dimensions linked to trust, cooperation, job creation and resilience, producers’ wellbeing and community empowerment (S1-S4, S7, S11), while they are less convinced of the effects on consumers’ awareness, and food identity preservation (S8, S9, S10), and of the capacity of FMs to counteract negative environmental externalities of agrifood production (EN1-EN8). Producers from Cia and Coldiretti, instead, tend to be more in line with each other in the whole spectrum of sustainability aspects, even if Cia producers clearly show a more positive perception of the environmental impacts of FMs. To test the hypothesis of FMs as a structural marketing and relational strategy for producers, alternative to conventional distribution channels, going beyond the mere economic profitability and embracing also a set of other economic, social and environmental values (Manser, 2022), we selected four of the impact variables as “proxy” for stability and intensity of producers’ relaTable 2. Decision-making criteria and FMs’ impacts from the producers’ questionnaire. Economic impacts (EC) EC1) Price level EC2) Income level EC3) Sales predictability EC4) Access to market EC5) Power & autonomy EC6) Products & income diversification EC7) Unfit products EC8) Favourable payment terms EC9) Risk sharing EC10) Resource sharing EC11) Distributive equity EC12) Local economy growth EC13) Consumers’ satisfaction EC14) Economic resilience to external shocks Social impacts (S) S1) Trust & relationships S2) Producers’ cooperation S3) Local jobs S4) Marginalised workers S5) Producers’ wellbeing S6) Female empowerment S7) Community empowerment S8) Local identity & knowledge preservation S9) Consumers’ food awareness S10) Affordability for consumers S11) Job resilience to external shocks Environmental impacts (EN) EN1) Transport pollution EN2) Packaging pollution EN3) Food waste EN4) Pesticides EN5) Agrobiodiversity preservation EN6) Animal welfare EN7) Resources regeneration EN8) Environmental awareness Source: authors’ elaboration. Questionnaire adapted from the COACH project methodology. Table 3. Consumption attributes among consumers at FMs. Consumption experience and prices (CE) CE1) It saves me money CE2) It saves me time CE3) It allows me to shop more pleasantly CE4) I find a wider and more diverse selection of products than in the supermarket CE5) After the COVID pandemic I increased my purchases at the farmers’ market Quality and health (QH) QH1) It makes it easier for me to buy typical and traditional products QH2) It makes it easier for me to buy seasonal fruit and vegetables QH3) I find fresher and better-quality produce QH4) It contributes to a more varied and healthier diet Localness and environment (LE) LE1) It makes it easier for me to buy local products LE2) It allows me to reduce food waste LE3) It allows me to reduce pollution due to transport LE4) It allows me to reduce packaging waste LE5) It contributes to supporting local producers Limiting factors (LM) LM1) Too much time is needed LM2) I cannot find all products when I need them LM3) Purchasing is too complicated (management, logistics) LM4) Products are too expensive LM5) Little variety of products available 54 Matteo Mengoni, Andrea Marescotti, Giovanni Belletti tionship with the FM and its other actors (other producers and consumers). The four proxy variables concern economic aspects like risk-sharing (EC9) and resourcesharing (EC10) with other actors, and social aspects such as the building of social and trust relationships between different actors (S1) and cooperation dynamics between producers (S2). Results (Figure 7) show how the two social proxy variables (S1 and S2) are perceived as very much positively influenced by FMs, coherently with what can be found in the literature (Mastronardi et al., 2015; Vittersø et al., 2019; Kneafsey et al., 2013; Mancini et al., 2019). Indeed, 79% of the sample producers consider the impact of FMs as positive on cooperation between producers (S2) and 97% of them consider the impact of FMs as positive on trust and social relations between producers and consumers (S1), with no “non positive” answers. For the economic proxy variable EC10 – i.e., the possibility of sharing resources with other producers, consumers or other actors – the perceived effect of FMs is significantly positive, with 64% of the sample producers declaring a positive impact. Instead, for the other economic proxy variable EC9 – concerning the possibility to share risk with other producers, consumers or other actors – the majority of actors (59%) perceived a nonpositive impact of FMs, while 35% of them perceived it as positive. In reality, looking deeper into the non-positive answers, only 15% of the producers expressed a negative impact of FMs on risk-sharing, while 44% of them perceived that impact as neutral (“neither positive nor negative”), which could be indicative of the fact that collective risk-coping mechanisms are not put in place by the interviewed producers, or that they are implemented outside the markets, regardless of producers’ participation in FMs. No significative differences across FMs networks were found for these four proxy variables, suggesting that the degree of intensity and stability of relations between Figure 2. Importance of FMs in relation to producers’ economic turnover. Figure 3. Producers supply of and consumers’ demand for products at FMs. Figure 4. Consumers’ frequency of purchase at FMs. Figure 5. 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